Make it totally Vegetarian or add extra fiber by using 2 cans of drained black beans instead of Carnitas.

Directions

Combine puree, salsa, and ½ CUP broth or water in bowl, add spices and stir set aside

Place carnitas into separate bowl and shred or chop into small pieces add 1- 1 ½ cup of sauce to pork and stir to combine

If using corn tortilla, warm in a pan with oil oil to prevent cracking before rolling, If using flour tortillas feel free to skip that step.
Lets get rolling!

Place 1 cup sauce on bottom of pan

Take 1 tortilla, add 2 rounded TB full of sauced meat, 1 TB cheese and roll up, set inside pan seam side down and repeat *
*Continue rolling until you have used all your filling.

Pour remaining sauce mixture on top of enchiladas. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes, after 20 minutes remove foil and sprinkle with ½ – ¾ cup cheese. Bake for 5-10 minutes until cheese has mostly melted.

Today, we made this absolutely delicious pizza, using the new Autumnal Harvest Alfredo Sauce (which we are super excited about!). Also featured in this recipe is the old standard: the fresh whole wheat pizza dough. Topping things off with broccolini, pancetta, mushrooms, roasted Brussels sprouts and fresh mozzarella balls, this pizza is a delicious fall treat!

Directions

Remove whole wheat dough from bag, onto floured surface. Let come to room temp for about 20 minutes. In the mean time, prepare ingredients and pre-heat your oven to 450˚F.

In a small skillet or sauce pan, over medium heat, combine pancetta and mushrooms and cook until crispy, about 5 minutes.

Work the dough in your hands, knead a little bit and then let gravity do the work to expand your dough. I love using a silat (or a silicone baking mat) to spread my dough out on. Once you have your dough to the desired shape, spread out harvest Alfredo sauce on top, then layer the pancetta and mushrooms, roasted Brussels sprouts broccolini and then finally the fresh mozzarella balls. Top with parmesan cheese. Bake for 10-12 minutes. After 12 minutes, we turned the broiler on low and watched the cheese get a little extra crispy.

What can we say, except…[You’re] Welcome! This week, we celebrate all foods Ryan Haringa, our favorite demi-god amongst men! He sings, he acts, he’s intelligent… Okay, mostly we’re just obsessed withi his perfect abs. Marie got her hands on Ryan’s meal plan, and this week she and Amanda are setting out to get a “Body by Ryan” by cooking the things he eats every day: ground turkey, spinach, bell peppers, and…Peanut M&Ms*?

*Peanut M&Ms not available at Trader Joe’s. Discover the answer to this dilemma and more, by watching now.

Following a diet plan that called for rock solid abs meant that Amanda’s refrigerator was full of healthy ingredients. Unfortunately, it was stocked with the same items that Marie brought (thus the spite bag reference).

But with most reducing diets, when you deprive yourself and restrict calories, you usually start to crave high fat, high sugar and generally unhealthy foods…which you’ll see in action in this episode. We don’t know how Ryan does it! (must be those daily 6 MnM’s! and One Bars!

Ingredients featured in this week’s episode:

Couple notes about the meals we prepared:

The zoodles were great. When we make this again, we’ll use a leaner ground turkey. The additional fat adds a great mouthfeel and flavor, but we would use a little extra heart healthy olive oil instead.

When you make zoodle bowls, add the zucchini at the very end. The longer they cook, the more fluid they release and turn mushy. We suggest you add the zucchini and parmesan, then turn the burner off. Top with cheese and put in the broiler for a minimal amount of time. The zucchini will soften enough with the other hot foods in the pan and in the oven.

We added protein powder to our ice cream. It tasted pretty good, but didn’t last in the freezer. Not because we ate it all, but because it solidified to a point it was inedible. If you choose to do this, we suggest eating within the hour of making or enjoy as a milkshake.

Directions

In the same pan, add olive oil. Once hot, add in peppers and sauté for a few minutes. Once soft, add spinach and let cook for another minute. Add in hummus.

At the last minute, turn off burner and stir in zucchini noodles and parmesan. Top with Quattro fromaggio cheese and place in the broiler (low) for a few minutes (watch closely). Remove and top with parsley and serve.

This week, we get real rugged with our ode to camping! Full of tin foil dinners, meat granola bars, improvising barware, “postmatesing” liquor and lighting things on fire. Plus grammar and vocabulary lessons (non-camping related). Check out the full episode here!

Ingredients featured in this week’s episode:

In preparation of camping this summer, Amanda tried out her camp cooking skills in the Fearless Flying Kitchen. Although, she doesn’t really ever go camping and thinks you can just throw packets of foil into the open fire (that’s how it works, right?)

We combine sweet and savory with these delicious peach and hatch green Chile foil packets. When we don’t have camping on the brain, we’ll make these again, but without the tin foil (since cooking with aluminum –> ingesting aluminum in your food –> not the best way to prepare meals on the daily) and instead bake in a pyrex dish. When peaches aren’t in season, you could even use canned or frozen (thawed) peaches.

Directions

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Combine bag of brown rice with can of chiles and microwave for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, dice peach and add to rice and chiles after being microwaved. Add to that mozzarella, salt, pepper, Greek yogurt, and garlic salt.

Get your sheets of foil ready. Add a portion of the rice mixture and top with a couple slices of sausage. Divide all the ingredients evenly between 5 or 6 tin foil sheets. Wrap up and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. OR you could just toss it in a camp fire (we’re assuming this will work?)

If you want to use a pyrex dish, we recommend mixing the sausages in with the rice mixture and placing in an 8X12 glass baking dish and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Directions

Add ingredients to a shaker (or two zoo cups) and cover and shake until combined.

Get a fire source and toast your marshmallow

Get two smaller plates or bowls. Add chocolate syrup to one and crushed graham crackers to the other. Grab a glass and place the rim in the chocolate syrup, then the graham crackers. Strain cocktail into glass. Top with roasted marshmallow.

*You really don’t need this. It is what we did, must most of it stayed with the ice when we strained it. If you really want this to be like dessert, you can put a little vanilla ice cream in your glass after rimming and before straining into it. Or save some fat and calories and leave it out. You won’t miss it.

** We just had a regular vodka, but a flavored vodka would be delicious here too! Try a whipped cream or marshmallow flavor and let us know how it goes in the comments.

This week, Marie and Amanda get the star treatment with the addition of Sound Engineer Jacob! While he introduces us to a higher level of technology, we introduce him to… you guessed it… Simpler Wines! Will our dinner taste better now that we have a bigger microphone? Can a beer-loving Hufflepuff truly appreciate canned wine the way that we do? And what’s all the Happy Dancing for? Be sure to watch to find out!

Ingredients Featured in This Week’s Episode:

We decided that the Pub Cheese tastes kind of like an adult handy-snack. On its own, it is kind of like cheese whiz, but is actually pretty good with honey whole wheat pretzels. Amanda decided to use it in place of ricotta cheese and replaced mozzarella cheese with Mexican cheese. The tomato sauce was more of a chili, and thus was born the southwest take on Eggplant Parmesan.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Peel and slice eggplant. Beat eggs in one bowl. In another, combine maseca and bread crumbs. Get vegetable oil in a large skillet and turn on medium-high. Once oil is hot, drudge each slice of eggplant in eggs, then maseca/breadcrumb mixture, and cook in hot oil until brown on each side. Remove eggplant and place on a paper towel to blot extra oil.

Meanwhile, cook chili mixture by dicing up garlic. Sauté in a separate skillet with a little bit of olive oil. Once onion starts to brown, add soyrizo and ground beef and cook until brown. Add can of tomato sauce and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and let cook and develop flavor for another 10 minutes.

When ready to assemble, layer one piece of eggplant, top with about 1 tbsp pub cheese, 1-2 tbsp of the chili mixture and 1 Tbsp Mexican cheese and repeat 1-2 more times. In the episode, we ended here, but we highly recommend assembling these on a baking sheet and placing in the oven for about 10 minutes, so the cheese gets nice and melty and the whole dish warms through. Top with guacamole and sour cream. We served this on a bed of arugula.

We used THIS RECIPE for the chocolate cupcakes from AllRecipes. We adapted it slightly with cutting the sugar down to 1 cup (instead of 1 1/2). We used the cacao powder in the cupcakes and then topped it with a chocolate ganache (basically melted 1 cup chocolate chips with 2 Tbsp half and half and 2 Tbsp butter mixed in) and caramelized bacon (bacon baked in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes with brown sugar and cinnamon on top).

Our biggest critic (Amanda’s husband) recently asked, “why can’t you just make something simple, like meat and potatoes?” Here in the Fearless Flying Kitchen, we like to take our fans (and critics) opinions seriously…which is why we have “meat and potatoes week” for all the Bro’s out there.

Ingredients featured in this week’s episode:

This week, we throw Amanda’s husband a solid, by making a meal out of meat, potatoes, “not meat” and “not potatoes.”

We went with a savory brunch for dinner, which we have officially coined as “Brupper” (add that to your urban dictionary!)

The meal’s base is a blend of mashed red and yellow potatoes with frozen mashed cauliflower. The two are blended together with some Parmesan cheese and herbs and spices and formed into a patty (a savory pancake)

The bag of potatoes also came with purple potatoes. We didn’t include these in the mash, because they would have turned it a funky color. Instead, we rinsed and quartered then, added a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them in the oven to roast at 400 degrees for about a half an hour.

Next up is the soy-chorizo creamed spinach. Full of so much flavor! At this point, if you are a vegetarian (or just don’t like or have steak) you could top with a poached egg for a fun take on an eggs Benedict.

The steak we used in the episode is a little bit tough, and is perfect for braising (cooked with a liquid). We tried to soften it up a bit by pounding and soaking in buttermilk (the acid can help soften the tough meat), but in the end, it still wasn’t the ideal texture. If we had more time in the kitchen, we definitely would have let the meat marinate for a lot longer (or try a different, wet cooking method, like braising).

To finish off the dish, we ended with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Lots of flavor!

Lastly, before you get to these awesome recipes…We did have a bit of a challenge with our new technology (the challenge was that Amanda accidentally deleted all the footage before uploading it), so apologies for the lack of actual cooking footage on the episode. We’ll work it out and make it work for future episodes. Thanks dad for the technology boost!

Directions

Pierce potatoes and place in a microwave safe dish with a tablespoon of water. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 6 minutes. Add half the bag of mashed cauliflower, re-cover, and microwave for another 4-6 minutes, until potatoes are soft and cauliflower is no longer frozen. Mash the potatoes and cauliflower together, add egg, parmesan cheese, garlic powder, parsley, salt and pepper and mix well. Let cool a little bit and turn on griddle (electric to about 350 or a stovetop griddle to medium-high).

Spray griddle with oil. Take a dollop of potato/cauliflower mixture and flatten into a patty (It will be really sticky, but that’s ok, you can get it mostly there, then continue to flatten with spatula once it is on the griddle ) and place on the hot griddle. Cook on each side for about 4-5 minutes, until it has a nice little brown mark on it.

Directions

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add minced onion and garlic then sauté for about 3-4 minutes. Add soy chorizo and continue to cook for about 5 minutes. Add spinach and let cook down for another 2-3 minutes. Add milk, half and half, and parmesan cheese. Continue to cook over medium-high heat for another couple minutes. Turn off heat and cover until ready to serve.

Buttermilk Steak Medallions

Ingredients

1 lb Sirloin Medallions

1/2 Cup Buttermilk

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 cup flour

1/2 Vegetable Oil

Directions

Pound sirloin steak tips with a mallet to tenderize and flatten. Place in a ziplock bag with buttermilk, garlic powder, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Squeeze air out of ziplock, seal, and place in refrigerator for at least a half an hour (longer preferred).

When ready to cook, take steak out of ziplock, season each side with additional salt and pepper, and drudge through flour. Place oil in a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Once hot (will sizzle when something is placed in skillet), then add flour coated steak medallions. Cook for a few minutes on each side (you want it to be brown and crispy on the outside.

Are we cooking or getting a lesson about words in UrbanDictionary.com? Maybe a little bit of both! This week we welcome guest chef, Jason, Amanda’s Cousin-in-Law and Actual Trader Joe’s Employee. He also claims to be an expert home cook. Will he be able to impress us, or at least put up with our snark? Watch below to find out!

Ingredients Featured in This Week’s Episode:

This week, we welcome Jason, all the way from Northern California! He is a seasoned home chef and grill master. He literally just got off a plane and Marie showed up with a bag of four ingredients pilfered from our pantries and freezers.

To say the least, he made this challenge look way too easy. Or maybe we just went really easy on him? Either way, the food was delicious, we wouldn’t change a thing!

For more details on Corn Tortilla/Tostada making, check out this quick video:

Ingredients

Directions

Thaw and dice raw shrimp and place in bowl. Squeeze 6 limes on top of shrimp.
To that, add diced thawed strawberries, diced red onion, diced cilantro, cubed avocado and salt and pepper. Stir and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. The ceviche is ready when the shrimp turns pink throughout and becomes firm.

Tahini and Greek Yogurt Elote

Ingredients

Directions

Open can of corn and place contents into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes, until warm. Add tahini, Greek yogurt, salt, parmesan cheese and butter. Stir to combine, until butter is melted. Top with Chile Lime Seasoning.

We also whipped up a batch of Strawberry Rosé Slushies, aka. Grown Up Smoothies. To make these, combine 3/4-1 bag of frozen strawberries (still frozen) with one 375ml can of Simpler Rose and a couple squirts of Agave (we are guessing 1-2 Tbsp, depending on taste). Blend on high until smooth. Serves 2-3. We like to top with a lime wedge to squirt in there. It’s super refreshing!

Since Amanda and Marie are running in the Rock N Roll Marathon and Half (respectively) this weekend, we decided to go all in on the carbs and excessively long and rambling recipe titles. Watch as we try to fuse together one too many cuisines. Will we add SO MANY flavors where it finally works? You’ll have to watch to find out!

Ingredients featured in this week’s episode:

This might have been the weirdest combination of items we have made in the Fearless Flying Kitchen. But it totally works! Comfort food at its best. Risotto is normally made with a short grain rice, but our risotto is made from a short grain pasta, Orzo! Between the carby-goodness of the Orzo and the flavors of the Miso-Ginger Broth, the base reminded us of the comfort food of our youth, “Oriental Flavored Top Ramen.”

The completed dish also reminded us of one of our favorite fresh (ie. Heat and Serve) items, Greek Style Chicken with Orzo, Spinach and Feta Cheese. However our version would be called the “Asian Style Salmon with Orzo, Mushrooms, Edamame and Goat Cheese…Oh and A Chutney Of Cucumbers and Lychee”

And speaking of that chutney, it was a great stand alone item and makes a great side dish or topping. We’ll definitely be revisiting that again.

Couple other things about this dish: smoked salmon really was wanting to be a breakfast item, and Marie brought it because it tasted so good with bagels and cream cheese. It had a distinct flavor in the risotto dish (which I want to make again but with a plain baked salmon) that mellowed out a bit once we added the goat cheese.

Directions

Make Cucumber-Lychee Chutney: Combined all ingredients in a bowl and mix together. Refrigerate for a half an hour.

Make Risotto: In a pot, warm up broth and water on medium-low. In another pan, over medium heat, melt 1 tbsp butter in a pan. Sautée shallot and garlic cloves for a few minutes. Add in orzo and cook for another couple minutes to brown a little. Now, you can begin to add a half a cup of warm stock/water until absorbed, then add another half cup, and continue this until all the liquid is absorbed. Make sure the heat is set to medium and you are stirring constantly.

Once all the stock is gone, you can use the same pot to melt 1 more tablespoon of butter and sauté the sliced shiitake mushrooms and fresh edamame over medium-high heat. This won’t take long to cook, you just want the mushrooms to soften and the edamame to warm throughout.

To assemble, place a a quarter of each in a bowl in the following order: orzo risotto, mushroom edamame mixture, smoked salmon (flaked, although see note at the bottom), cucumber-lychee chutney, and then the toppings (green onion, goat cheese and everything but the bagel seasoning).

NOTE (WHAT AMANDA WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY)- Instead of using the smoked salmon, you can bake fresh salmon. To do this, pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, place salmon on baking sheet and rub with olive oil and top with fresh sea salt and pepper. Bake for about 16-18 minutes. This will decrease the smokiness of the salmon, and would be a great flavor to add to the top of the orzo risotto. You probably wouldn’t need to add the goat cheese and bagel seasoning.

We made the Blueberry-Lavender Coffee Popsicles by combining 1 cup of Blueberry-Lavender Flavored Almond Beverage with 1 cup Cold Brew (Black) Coffee and 1-2 Tbsp Coffee Syrup (start with one Tbsp and then add a little more if you like it sweeter). This will make about 10 popsicles, with each one containing 12 calories, 3.7g carbs, 3.2g sugar, and 11mg sodium…not too bad if you are looking for a sweet, summer treat that won’t break the scale. I mean, it’s basically the same as breathing air…plus a little sugar…

However, these popsicles are a little on the “icy” side. Great flavor though! You can experiment with adding a couple tablespoons of half and half into the mixture, which would no longer make it vegan, but might improve the mouthfeel a tad.

We have our first special guest of the season, a Mate from New York City! Plus, he is a vegetarian and expects the food to be #slammin‘. Will Amanda and Marie be able to come together and make some delicious food?

Watch the episode here:

Ingredients featured this week include:

First, let’s start off with our GIVEAWAY!

Mystery Pack of Regional Bags

Every Christmas, my mom and I would always buy each other the mystery packs of regional bags that Trader Joe’s sells. You can usually only get the regional bags from that specific area of the country, but the mystery bag packs have three random regional bags. It is always so much fun to get different bags and see what represents other cities.

Little did I know, that all along, my mom was just gaming for the New York City bag, ands always so disappointed when she never got one in the bags. Our friend, and Mate all the way from New York City, brought us some regional bags, making us able to use our last mystery pack for a giveaway!

We will be GIVING AWAY this mystery pack of regional bags as well as some of our favorite non-perishable swag from Trader Joe’s.

Find the mystery pack giveaway post on FACEBOOK – like that, share it with your friends, tag your friends, and comment. You get a point for each interaction! (you must be following Fearless Flying Kitchen on Facebook to count)

Find the mystery pack giveaway post on INSTAGRAM – like that, comment on it, and tag your friends. You get a point for each interaction! (you must be following Fearless Flying Kitchen on instagram to count)

Like and comment on any of the Swashbuckled videos on YouTube and get an extra point for each interaction!

Giveaway will end on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at midnight PST. Winner will be announced on the episode of Swashbuckled on Monday, June 11.

OK, now back to the food!

We had a #slammin’ time in the kitchen with Kris from New York. The only stipulation was that the food had to be vegetarian, and that Marie would be helping. Since the fridge was stocked for only lasagna, that’s what happened. Amanda made a delicious stovetop, easy lasagna. The combination of crème fraîche and ricotta was a little piece of heaven, and should be done with all lasagna from here on out. We also saved a little extra and topped our endives with it…also great. The sauce of Piquillo Pepper and Quinoa Spread with Whole Crushed Tomatoes was also a huge win. Great flavor and texture. You could just use your favorite jar of sauce if you truly want to make it a one pot meal…but this combo is definitely worth washing that second dish.

The only thing that was off was the mochi rice nugget topping. We all decided that just makes a great snack. But all in all, this was a great, quick, meal that you can get super creative with. It is perfect for busy weeknights when you need a little hands off time (but still need a meal on the table in less than an hour).

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375˚F. Prepare all vegetables (zoodle, slice and dice). Note, if you don’t have a zoodler, you can always just dice zucchini.

In a large skillet (that can go in the oven), heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add red bell peppers and cook about 3 minutes, then add zucchini. Cook both for about 5 more minutes, then add mushrooms and cook until they have softened.

Meanwhile, combine Piquillo Pepper and Quinoa Spread with one large can of whole peeled tomatoes. Crush whole peeled tomatoes in your hand as you are adding it to the pot. Heat over medium heat to a simmer. Add salt as needed (try it first, and add if it needs it according to your taste buds).

Spread the cooked vegetables evenly around the large skillet. Top with broken up pieces of lasagna noodles. Cover noodles completely with sauce. Cover with lid and reduce heat to medium-low. Let cook, covered, for about 20 minutes.

While the noodles and sauce cook, combine Ricotta Cheese, Crème Fraîche, parsley and parmesan cheese in a bowl and set aside.

After 20 minutes, remove cover and stir noodles. If they have softened, then top with Ricotta/Crème Fraîche mixture (little blobs all over). Top with even more mozzarella cheese, and place in the oven to help melt and brown cheese. Can put in the broiler on low for a little while too. Once brown, remove from oven and enjoy! If you can’t put your skillet in the oven, you could just cover with the lid again and let the cheese melt that way. It will get melty but not necessarily start to brown.

Note – In this episode we decimated half a bag of Mochi Rice Nuggets in the vitamix (or food processor, if you have one), and added it to the top of the lasagna along with the mozzarella and broiled it on low. We don’t recommend this step, but instead, just eat the mochi rice nuggets as a separate snack. However, if you did want to recreate what we did, this is it.

We, yet again, followed a recipe on the back of a product, and the result was #slammin’! There are always great ideas and suggestions on the back of the package. Marie begrudgingly proved that she can be somewhat useful in the kitchen!

Really wanting to impress Marie for the season premier, Amanda decided to go for the cheeseburger, even though there wasn’t any buns in the house. We made this awesome 40-minute Hamburger Bun Recipe from Taste of Home. It was quick and easy, and had a biscuit-like quality to it. We replaced 1 cup of the flour with White Wheat Flour for an earthier flavor and improved nutrition profile. Make sure you watch the episode for extra tips on making yeast bread from scratch.

However, if you don’t want to make your own bread and have an opportunity to go to the store, these Parm-Iago Rosemary Rolls (pictured to right) make excellent slider buns and would work well in this recipe.

We started out by “blooming” our thyme, which releases more flavor than just sprinkling into whatever you are preparing. Since some flavor compounds in some herbs and spices are fat soluble, you can extract more flavor when they are cooked (over low heat) with a fat source. We chose a mixture of oil and butter for this recipe, but you could easily just choose one or the other. Remove the herb before adding other ingredients.

(SPOILER ALER) We loved this meal and would definitely do it again. Highly recommended!

Directions

Infuse thyme into oil and butter: over medium-low heat, melt butter and add olive oil and 8 sprigs of thyme. cook on low for about 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove thyme and discard. Turn heat up to medium or medium-high, and add sliced onion and sautée for a couple minutes, then add heart of palm. Cook for 5 minutes then add spinach, garlic, mustard and 2 additional thyme stems (chopped). Cook until spinach has cooked down. Salt and pepper to taste.

Make burger patties: Preheat grill to medium-high. Combine ground beef, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper with hands. Mix well. Form into 6 balls and squash them into thin patties. Set aside (and don’t forget to wash your hands with warm soapy water!) Cook for about 4 minutes per side, until internal temperature of 165˚F is reached.

To assemble, slice bread in half, butter each half and cook on griddle for a couple minutes, until golden brown. Place a tablespoon of goat cheese on top bun, burger patty on the bottom, topped with 1/4 cup mixture of onions, spinach and heart of palm. Top with “GLAZE” (balsamic reduction or balsamic glaze).

Looking for Amanda’s Nutrition Website?

Disclaimers:

The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.